


no place more simply sweet

by meggsy



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-13
Updated: 2018-11-13
Packaged: 2019-08-23 00:32:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16608425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meggsy/pseuds/meggsy
Summary: Maret wakes up from a good dream, but there's something better waiting for him in the waking world.





	no place more simply sweet

Maret wakes slowly, as he always has. The dream’s remnants linger like the morning fog that skirts low to the grounds outside in the garden. It makes it hard to lift his head, to push himself up off the soft blankets and pillows. 

So, he doesn’t. Instead, he shuffles deeper into the den of blankets and curls his arms tighter around Portia, keeping his eyes closed as he presses his forehead to the soft skin of her shoulder. She laughs softly as he does so; she woke long before him, as per usual. It must be her day off, then, if she hasn’t gotten out of bed yet.

“Morning. Sleep well?” she asks. 

Involuntarily, his next breath comes out in a sharp huff. That gets him a squeal and a bit of a shove from Portia. Finally peeling open his eyes, he’s just in time to catch her wiggling about to face him, a faux-affronted look on her face. He smiles slightly and leans forward to kiss her on the cheek in apology. Portia can barely hold the mask for another second. With a smile of her own, she brushes away the curly brown hair that falls across his forehead, planting a kiss there herself.

“I had a dream,” Maret says when she draws back. The details elude him, only flashes remain: a dozen different voices, unintelligible but unmistakably happy; feeling small but safe, surrounded but warm. A twinge of familiarity and nostalgia pulses in his chest for just a moment, before everything slips away. 

“Aww.” She frowns. Pushing herself up with both arms, she peers down at him as she searches for something in his expression. “A nightmare again? I thought they were getting better.”

“They were. Are.” He hasn't had one in a while, the night terrors not as often and not as intense as they were before. The Lazaret still sings to him, on occasion. He doesn’t feel the tug on his soul anymore, he doesn’t feel the pull to the docks, beyond the docks, towards the dark reminder hovering just at the horizon of Vesuvia’s bays. But Maret knows, with a certainty that’s bone-deep, that the Lazaret branded his soul just as he left something of his own behind scattered across those ashen shores. There is power in that. Magic, even.

“It wasn’t a nightmare,” he says, scattering the unwelcome thought. “I- I think it was a memory.”

Portia’s eyebrows rise. “What of?”

He shakes his head helplessly. “I don’t know.” After everything that’s happened, there’s still so much of his past that Maret doesn’t remember. “I think it was a good one, though,” he adds. 

The wistfulness in his voice must be clear as day to Portia. Her expression falls, ever so slightly. Her hands fist in the sheets, gripping so tightly her knuckles whiten. “I wish I could help,” she says. “I mean, what can I do? If someone needs a smack upside the head or a good telling off, that I can do. But I can't help you with this.” 

Setting his jaw, Maret lifts himself up so that he's seated beside her. He presses closer to her, brings one arm around her shoulder to pull her close, like he could pull her warmth into himself, her presence, her sunlight-and-loam aura. 

“You help,” he says, firmly. She still isn't looking up at him. “Portia, you do.”

On the mornings that start with him wondering if he’s truly awake, on the days he feels disconnected from his body like his soul has forgotten what it’s like to have one again, Portia has always been constantly, undeniably, real.

He cradles both her cheeks in his hands, meets her upset look with the softest determination he can muster. 

“No matter how good of a dream it was, it's in the past, and should stay there. Waking up is worth it to be with you,” he says, and presses a gentle kiss to her lips. “Maybe I never get those memories back. But if I can build new ones with you, that's all I'll ever need.” 

She huffs, but a watery smile pulls across her face as she clasps her hands over his own. Maret lets his hands drop, and they sit there a while with fingers interwoven, taking comfort in each other's presence. 

At least, until Maret's stomach decides to make its own voice heard. Portia turns her head to him as the grumble subsides, and he gives a sheepish chuckle when she gives him a poke in the belly. 

“Sounds like you need a lot more than just that,” she says. She tosses back the blanket covering her and pushes herself up and off the bed. “I'll get started on breakfast. I've got this new blackberry jam so--oh, good morning Pepi!--how does porridge sound?”

“Sounds perfect,” he says, grinning brightly. “I'll get the tea going.”

“Thanks!” 

The kitchen is small, packed and overflowing with supplies and utensils and the dozens of trinkets that they've collected between them. Pepi crowds around their ankles, Maret bangs his elbows on the edges of cabinet doors that he's opened and forgets to close. They have to squeeze around one another to maneuver in the tighter corners, and she almost knocks the cups from his hands when she triumphantly whirls around to show him the heavy jar of sweet jam she found at the market the other day. 

It's messy, but it's home. And there's nowhere else, past or future, real or imagined, that he'd rather be.


End file.
